I was a DC kind of guy. I read Marvel, but couldn't really get into it. I liked Spiderman and Fantastic Four, but that was about it.

And I quit reading comics about the time I hit puberty.

Again, for whatever it's worth.

Yeah, well, if everybody quit reading comic books when they hit puberty, there might not be any comic books today. Marvel and DC are pitched to teenagers and young adults, and it's a matter of some concern in the business that the traditional audience of nine-year-olds has dried up. ("We've lost the Fourth Grade!") I was at a panel at the San Diego comics convention last year where the topic was how to get kids interested in comics again -- when a few decades ago the problem, at least out amongst the general public, was more like how to get the kids interested in something else. (Though one panelist who did presentations at schools reported that it was mostly girls who showed an interest in comics these days, but almost entirely manga, while the boys didn't seem to be reading much at all. Neither development is good news for old-school US companies like DC and Marvel.)

In the referenced Corner item by Jonah Goldberg comparing and contrasting DC and Marvel (a common feature of comics fanzines forty years ago when I got into the hobby), what Jonah is talking about is really the end result of Marvel (and basically Stan Lee) making comic books interesting to teenagers in the '60s, when DC was still pursuing the nine-year-olds with the idea they'd be gone after age twelve or so. The old expectation of Society that a kid who read comic books after a certain age must have some cousins in his background who got too friendly with each other or else his lips just get too tired when he reads real books surely should have been laid to rest a long time ago.

Fill disclosure: I occasionally do free-lance translating work for a certain line of kid-friendly comic books. And yes, it would be wonderful to have the kids back buying them instead of so many adult collectors...

The comics industry has been bitten by the computer game and the DVD. The technique to get the readers back is one of synergy. Comic book based movies, followed by comic book based video games. Once you have a fan base, they'll come into the comics stores to feed their addiction. It used to be that kids would buy the cheep books and then follow the movies and saturday morning TV shows, but now it's the other way around.

I hope that marvel and DC turn it around soon, since the decline of mainstream comics has absolutely killed the independents, which is something I've followed closely since the underground days. When the profit margin and number of comics stores is small, the small press guys can't even make a buck, let alone pay their own way.

Personally, I liked the gritty stuff early. I was also a morbid, morose, over thinking teenager. It was the late sixties, I was told by my peers and their older siblings, to think. My parents barely allowed me to live through it all, pity them. The comics styles, as with any reading I think, go with the personality of the reader.

Having said that, I don't care DC or Marvel, let's burn all these friggin video games, smash all the Gamey Lazy Boy deluxe game systems, and their competitors. Smash all the associated super deluxe spinal and cerebral cortex connectors and the visor viewers that go with them, remove the DVD players from your car or van and buy your kids, or in my case grandkids, a comic book!!

It may not be high art or literature but it IS reading and it DOES spur thinking. The games just spur reaction!! The DVD players promote only drool!! Did I make my point yet?

Comics good / video games and travelling DVD players bad!!

Oh MY GOD!! I've become my own grandfather!!

How many 4th or 5th graders want to pay $3.00 for a comic book?

Mike,
some of the 4th and 5th graders we have contact with, are getting $20 and more PER WEEK for an allowance.

One I know of, 5th grade, is getting $200 a month as his "salary" for going to school. (mommy and daddy say he deserves it, that's his job!) Grades net a graduated scale of bonuses every grading period.

If I did my math right $3.00 for a comic book is small peanuts. But they don't buy books, comic or otherwise. Most of these kids own more music CDs and DVDs than I do. If you can call what they listen to music.

My girls like Sonic the Hedgehog comics. It is all about the right marketing tie ins....

Yours,
Wince

I just bought 40 years of Back issues of the Avengers and the FF for peanuts.

http://www.eagleonemedia.com/comic_book_cd-roms.htm

This is the new way to do comics.

I would also like an electronic subscription format where I pay to have them emailed to me each month.